1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of correcting errors in triple-coded data through a transmission medium which is likely to cause a burst error.
2. Description of Background Information
An error correcting method of a double-coding system using Reed-Solomon codes is known to be used for a compact disk (CD). According to this method, a 1-bit flag F1 is generated after correction is done with the first code, and when two errors are to be corrected with the second code, whether or not the correction is to be made and the value of a flag F2 is determined by the number of symbols in a code word for which F1=1 and the number of those two errors acquired by the second code whose positions match the symbols with F1=1.
This method should, therefore, refer to the flags at the positions of two errors before correction is made, and is not suitable for a high-speed operation. Since the double-coding system and the error correcting method are designed to treat audio codes, the error correcting performance is insufficient for recording of computer data or the like.
The present inventors have proposed in Japanese Patent Application No. Sho 59-150764 the error correction coding and error correcting method which can be used in recording of computer data or the like. Although this error correcting method has a high performance of error correction, it is unsuitable for a high-speed operation due to the repetitive correction. Further, the method is incapable of sufficiently dealing with data which has many burst errors.